Computer software applications for searching and providing results of searches are known in the art. Such applications include Internet search engines, such as those provided by Google® and Yahoo® document management systems, such as ones provided by Interwoven®; and Internet-based document management systems, such as the Share service provided by Adobe®.
Conventional software applications for searching document collections and providing results of the searches are typically text-based. For example, some conventional applications allow a user to input search criteria using an input device, such as a keyboard, and return the search results as a web page containing text. Some such applications return contextual search results. For instance, conventional applications may return a set of search results with the search terms highlighted or otherwise emphasized within the search result list.
In order to respond to search requests, conventional search applications rely on some form of indexing. For example, conventional systems may employ a software application known as a “crawler” to traverse a set of web pages and other content. This content may be local or may be distributed across a network, such as the Internet. Once the crawler has traversed the content, it stores information about the content, including its location, in an index.